The Siren Board

So I was playing around with Windows Movie Maker and made a video of the recording of a monthly test and added pictures and a 30 second silent video to it. The recording is of Mason City, Iowa's old tornado siren system. The dual tone siren you hear is an ACA Allertor! Its very old (1969) and it has a 3rd minor pitch instead of the common 4th. I remember the sirens sounding very spooky when they would sound for tornadoes. Sadly in the summer of 2006 the city replaced them with Federal Signal 2001's and the old sirens (what was left of them...) were privately auctioned. You can also hear 2 other sirens both of which are Federal Signal Thunderbeams. This was an amazing siren system, unfortunately it had a lot of bugs in it and had to be replaced. Most of the thunderbeams in town had a broken rotator and so the disk was always pointing in the same direction. The allertors constantly had to be oiled up so that they wouldn't get stuck. They also had very bad motors, one of which exploded and blew a large hole in the housing and forced the top cone to fall to the ground and shatter. The allertor in the video at the begining actually fell apart when they were removing it... i watched it happen and i have to say it was kinda cool... the horn fell and then bounced off the street before it cracked in half. I'm just thankful i got a recording before they went down.

Ok the video is in google video unfortunately because youtube wouldn't except the upload for some reason. Sorry for any inconvenience this causes.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 2947&hl=en

If i'm not mistaking, these Allertors used the 10/12 rotors made by Federal Signal, and sounds a lot like the Thunderbolt.

Are you new here? I have that video and like 3 recordings of that siren. It was posted a long time ago from somebody...was it you?

I have been on the Board for a year, and it was someone else who posted the recording of the siren.

yah its me! ACA Allertor kid. I dont think the recording has been posted within the last year... my real name is Troy Sundt. I sent a tape recorded one to the siren contest a couple years back. But yah it is definitely me.

2t22boy wrote:Are you new here? I have that video and like 3 recordings of that siren. It was posted a long time ago from somebody...was it you?

YOU HAVE THE VIDEO?!?! OMG! Is there anyway you could send it to me??? I'll PM my email!

there should be a recording thats the same as this one, and then one taken during a tornado warning and maybe the one taken on tape and entered into the contest... and then the video! I didnt think i gave anyone the video.

That is the best sounding Allertor I've ever heard!

Hey! Long time no see mate! Welcome back!

By the way, very cool recording; nice and spooky.

Welcome back, Troy!

The Allertor with that pitch sounds weirder than a 2T22 or a 3T22.

For such an old siren, the wind-up is nice and strong! Excellent recording!